Diversification: Epistolaries, Folklore, and Short Stories

           To me, one of the most exciting parts of finishing a book is the prospect of starting a new one.  Choosing books is one of my favorite things to do in the world, and there is a plethora of ways in which I choose books.  Sometimes I catch wind of a good one on the radio or on the internet.  Also, there are so many books that I learned about in college that I never got a chance to read, which leads to the never-ending list of canonical books that always gives me options.  A lot of the time, its just something that my sister recommends to me (I trust her literary opinion implicitly).  My favorite way to pick a new book, however, is to just go to a bookstore and browse.  I look through the sections and judge books by their covers (which I know you aren’t supposed to do, but we all do it anyway), I read various summaries and criticisms while smelling the pages of an unknown book (few things smell better than a good book), and I am a sucker for those displays that they put up in Barnes and Noble.  You know, the kind that says, “perfect for a day at the beach,” or, “buy two, get one free!”  I fall for it every time, helpless consumer that I am.

            In choosing these books, however, there is one thing that I have tried to be more aware of in recent years in large part due to conversations with my brother of recognizing my own privilege.  It is easy to fall into the trap of reading only great, white, straight, male authors.  It’s true, some of these authors are undoubtedly fantastic.  David Foster Wallace was a genius, Vonnegut was the voice of a generation, Steinbeck holds my heart!  I definitely got stuck in the white-straight-male author trap for a few years.  Nevertheless, I feel that, as readers, we need to dive into all types of literature from all types of people in order to truly see the art of written word in every possible form.  In this light, I have made efforts to diversify my book choices and it has been one of the best things I have ever done.  With this in mind, this list is filled with incredible books from a series of authors that are as different as the art that they created.  And each one is just as amazing as the next.

1. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

            This book was fantastic.  It is a letter from the author written to his son about struggling with the falsehoods of race in America and everything that goes with it.  Coates manages to take a caustic and incendiary topic and deconstructs it to an incredibly accessible level with the most considerate yet powerful prose written in recent years.  As Coates pours through subjects such as slavery, police shootings, gang violence, or just day-to-day racism and bigotry he manages to weave a perspective that elucidates everyone’s role in this struggle whether they be people who claim to be white, people who are black, or anyone in between.  As Toni Morrison herself says, “This is required reading,” especially for anyone who does not know where they stand or what to do with these issues.

 

2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie

            This story is the delightful tale of a young boy named Haroun who sets off on an adventure to save the fantastical “Sea of Stories,” which has been mysteriously poisoned.  He has a personal investment in saving the Sea because his father is one of the few storytellers in the world and he has lost his abilities due to the adulteration of the fountainhead to the sea.  With whimsical style, Rushdie floods this narrative with magical imagery that dances off the page yet remains grounded, somehow, in the reality of how important stories are to the world at large.  Filled with folklore and fantasy, this is a modern classic for anyone to enjoy.

 

3. Vampires in the Lemon Grove, by Karen Russell

            Karen Russell is a dizzying author who delves into realms of magical realism with power and confidence.  This is her second collection of short stories, published after her acclaimed novel Swamplandia! (which is also incredible and you should definitely read that too), and it allows us as readers to fall even deeper into a rabbit hole of fantastical yet nostalgic worlds with truthfully disturbing characters that are scarily accessible.  Stories such as women being forced to turn into shocking chimeras that must make silk, all for an empire that they don’t believe in anymore, or the barn where most presidents go as horses when their term is over, or even two vampires forced to eat lemons as they try to keep their love for each other and life itself alive.  Russell is a joy to read and a contemporary author like no other.

 

4. The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri

            This Pulitzer Prize winning novel opens up by describing the swampland that separates two ponds in an area of Calcutta.  This “Lowland” acts as the driving metaphor that explodes into a subtle yet visceral account of the lives of two brothers which begins in India.  However, as close as they are, they couldn’t be more different.  Through conflicting political, academic, and philosophical ideologies, the brothers grow apart, just like the swampland that dries up in between the two ponds that expands as drought and famine affects Calcutta.  They are thrown into their separate worlds with different problems, love interests, and the like, but are constantly bound through a relationship that distance or differing ideologies could never sever.  Traveling through tumultuous times and political unrest in India as well as the United States, the brothers are forced to play out their fates and grapple with ultimate tragedy, all the while trying to hold on to hope.  Lahiri dazzles with this powerful tale.

 

5. This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz

            This collection of short stories is told from the perspective of the infamous Yunior from Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  Yunior is, at face value, a skeez-bag womanizer who never gets anything right and only cares about himself.  Through these stories, however, the reader is shown a callused view of relationships and love and is left with a startling realization to not only what intimacy should be, but also how adulterated it has become for so many.  We as readers go through Yunior’s troubled romantic history and are forced to feel his emotions, his frustrations, and his heartaches as he attempts to figure out how to love from a young boy all the way to an older man.  Díaz, as usual, delivers with his singular prose that is filled with curse words, life, Spanglish, and truth in this delightful yet heartbreaking series of stories.

 

Biographies, Graphic Novels, and a Touch of Fantasy

I've done some sporadic blogging throughout my early adulthood.  It was never anything consistent and it definitely never had one cohesive theme or subject with which to guide it.  Nowadays, my life is filled with being a teacher, going to Disneyland, or whatever whimsicality approaches me at any given time, which leaves me with little to blog about lest I resort to the played out teacher blog.  However, there has always been one thing that I will do my whole life no matter what, and that is reading.  With that in mind, I've come to realize that my favorite thing to talk about, whether it be with other people, through writing, or whatever other medium, is books.  So, instead of trying to maintain a dying blog, I've decided to re-brand and try to stick to something more consistent.       

In my other blog, I had a couple posts titled "Ten Books Everyone Should Read."  I thought to myself, "What if I just kept that going and stuck with the idea of doing a monthly or bi-monthly list?"  Then I realized I'd probably run out of books and would be left with another dying blog as I tried to catch up on my reading.  So, five is the new number that I estimate I will be able to keep up with and the following is your first list of five books that everyone should read:

1. Persipolis, by Marjane Satrapi

            This is a graphic novel which tells the story of the author’s childhood growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution.  She effortlessly weaves humor, tragedy, art, and masterful storytelling in this delightful, yet powerful novel.  Also, it’s super short.  You can definitely knock it out in a day or two.

 

2. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

            I used to read a lot more fantasy growing up, and this book was me jumping back into the genre.  Oh my, how I was surprised by so much more than just a fantasy novel!  Gaiman somehow managed to write a brilliant story of mythology and religion as they manifest themselves in the jaded American context.  Spinning tales of a dizzying number of characters as they careen down an inevitable path that hovers somewhere in a palpable mystery throughout the story, Gaiman keeps you on your toes and stays right in your heart as you go on this fantastic journey with Shadow, the main character.  A must read for everyone, not just fantasy fans.

 

3. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, by Neal Gabler

            Now, take this with a grain of salt because I am an admitted Disney fanatic, but this is the best biography I have ever read.  Not only does Gabler give you all the information you could ever hope to know about the indelible man who was Walt Disney, but he does it in a way that is compelling and profound, elaborating on society at large through the lens of Disney as opposed to just a mundane catalogue of his life.  It’s pretty long, so I understand if you really don’t want to read it, but if you’ve ever thought about curling up with a thousand-page book about Disney, this is the book for you.  And the last couple hundred pages are just notes and citations that nobody but a crazed Disney obsessed lunatic would read (*cough).

 

4. The Round House, by Louise Erdich

            There are some books that never really leave you and you can’t tell whether they are haunting your dreams or making them better, but either way you’re kinda okay with it because it makes you a better person in the long run.  This is one of those books.  Erdich is a genius storyteller and her characters become so visceral that you can’t help but feel every joy and every sorrow just as much as they do.  The basic plot takes place on an Indian Reservation in North Dakota and begins when an adolescent boy’s mother is viciously attacked.  We as readers are forced to ponder the unreachable themes of justice and hope alongside the whole family as they grapple with the fear and confusion that plagues them following the incident.

 

5. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire

            Now, this book is ostensibly about education, but it ultimately encompasses sooooooo much more than that.  Freire was an educational theorist from Brazil whose teachings are taught, to this day, in virtually every single educational program out there.  This is, arguably, his most important work.  The basic premise is essentially about how those in power can never truly teach those who are “below” them.  Instead, the oppressors and the oppressed need to work together to break the barriers between the classes so that everyone can be educated.  Told with such knowledge and wisdom, this book not only proposes a theory, but puts forth tangible ways in which to go about putting it into practice.  This guy was incredible and everyone needs to read this book.